The HP TouchSmart TM2 or TM2t does a 180 from HP's long-running line of TX convertible tablet PCs. Gone are the plasticky looks and AMD CPUs that shouted "budget PC". For roughly the same price as the outgoing TouchSmart TX2z, the TM2 has a brushed aluminum casing and chiclet keyboard borrowed from the high-end HP Envy line. The HP TM2 has a non-grainy capacitive touch screen and a Wacom active digitizer for pressure-sensitive drawing and note-taking. The new TouchSmart runs on an Intel 1.3GHz CULV SU7300 processor that's long on battery life and cool running and it comes standard with a fast 7200 RPM hard drive. We look at the retail store model, the TM2-1070US, that comes with 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM, a 320 gig hard drive, 3 USB ports, HDMI, Intel's 4500HD graphics, WiFi 802.11n and a webcam. This full review includes 3 video reviews.

Lisa, I just wanted to thank you for the complete and well-thought-out review! I've been waiting for a decent one, as the stuff so far has been cursory and written by folks who wouldn't know a tablet PC from an iPad! Lol! Glad I found this site and your intelligent and complete review. I think this is the first time I've ever read a review where ALL my questions were answered. Bravo.

Hi Lisa, I agree- your review is the most comprehensive and informative one available. I'm just wondering if you can provide a picture of the tablet displaying a pdf file in portrait mode- will the doc fit in fully without having to zoom out? How easy is it to edit a pdf?

In terms of document display and screen real estate it's like most 12" notebooks and many 13" notebooks since it has a standard 1280 x 800 pixel resolution display common to both.

You can see a full page at a time at 100% with many documents, but it does depend on what page size layout the document was created with. For a standard 8.5 x 11 PDF, yes 100% works unless the margins are out to the very edge (which would be unusual).

As for ease of editing, that depends on what app you're using to edit PDFs.

Thanks for that. I've never had a 12" notebook nor looked at one carefully before. Judging from comments on other sites, I got the impression that only SXGA screens are good for viewing pdfs at 100%. Sounded like the 1280 x 800 resolution was an issue for those people wanting to do a lot of pdf viewing/editing. I couldn't understand the problem without pictures to illustrate. I'm glad you don't think it'll be an issue.

lol! Can't wait to see a TM2 in person. I've been looking and unfortunately it looks like it's going to be pretty scarce on the ground. It appears that Best Buy, Staples, and Office Max are carrying it online only. I sure hope it's just because it's new and not shipping in quantities yet...this appears to be the best (only?) hope for the tablet PC to gain any traction this year. As a long-time tablet user, I've been evangelizing them for years, but since people generally can't put their hands on them (aside from the TX series), they've been a hard sell.

Oh, and if there ever was a time for HP to relaunch the TC1100 line, this was the year. Seriously, what are they thinking?

And one more thing, Lisa -- your drawing was fantastic! Is your tablet art posted somewhere on the net where it can be seen? A writer, revier, and an artist rolled into one? A true renaissance woman. Keep up the good work (:

Quick and prompt as always, Lisa. I was quite worried HP would mess something up in what seemed like a great machine, but that put fears to rest. Though your cat seems a little less enthusiastic about the TM2

The glare screen is disappointing on an highly mobile machine though, since a good matte displays can achieve good color response and contrast. The X200 is rightfully more expensive - the display is not only matte but it's IPS, a technology with better viewing angles and color accuracy.

feralboy: I would expect it will end up in stores eventually, since the tx2z was in those same stores. Inventory is very slim right now, and some large retailers like Fry's haven't gotten any at all. Staples carries them (though stock is super-limited) in a few flagship stores located in suburban shopping meccas.

Thanks for the drawing compliment-- it runs in the family so I just got lucky. I had a site where I posted some digital art and oil paintings but I haven't done anything with it in years (this site keeps me too busy!).

ypocaramel: Actually, our cat was really fascinated by the TM2! He rarely inserts himself into our video reviews just to see a piece of tech .

You're totally right about the merits of a matte display and more expensive display technologies like IPS. Since this is a consumer model costing half the price, HP can do only so much. And it certainly is an improvement over the matte but grainy and lower contrast tx2z. Now if this was HP's Professional EliteBook 2730 we'd give it a much harder time.

BTW folks, we'll be getting the 1.6GHz with ATI dedicated graphics model in this month and we'll add benchmarks for it so you can compare it to the base 1.3GHz with Intel 4500HD graphics that we reviewed.

I decided to order it for myself and couldn't resist HP's $300 off coupon (use the code NBLB654877) when ordering from the HP US website (thanks to the folks at tabletpcreview for posting that code!). Right now, HP is also offering good discounts on additional RAM and a 500 gig hard drive when you build to order on their website.

Hello all, I just put my order in on Saturday and when I checked back today, the NBLB654877 promo code no longer works.

Quick question, do you think the HP2's screen will, after say a year of writing with the pen, start to show those translucent-like scribbles in the portion of the screen where the user frequently uses the pen? You sometimes see signs of these "scribble" on the center portion of a PDA's screen where the stylus was frequently used. Do you think a screen protector will almost be necessary for this tablet? I wish the answer was no but anything with finger manipulation, coupled with a pen, almost ensures the use of screen protector not only from excessive fingerprints but also screen wear from the pen as well.

I've had tablet PCs since the beginning (around 2002), and I've keep units for a year to two years and haven't gotten those scratch marks that one sees on plastic-screened PDAs. But if you're concerned, you can always get a screen protector.

Bummer that the code no longer works, but I do hope you enjoy your new tablet .

Yeah, I've had the same experience as Lisa. I've been using tablets since about 2002 also, and I've found that most are designed with very sturdy screens. Also, with a tablet, you're not as likey to be writing over and over again in the same spot as you would on a tiny PDA screen. I write quite frequently on mine and haven't had a problem. That said, I think all of my tablets, save one, have had glass screens.

When should we expect the benchmark results of the 1.6Ghz model? I have decided to get this computer but am still torn on whether or not I should customize it and get the 1.6 Ghz with a 500Gb HD over the ready-to-ship 1.3Ghz model with a 320Gb HD. I can deal with the downgrade to the 320Gb HD that comes with the quick ship model (I have a 320Gb external HD), as long as I don't lose too much power compared with the 1.6Ghz processor. Any advice on what I should do?

If there are good coupon offers (HP has been good with those in the past few weeks) you might be able to score the 1.6GHz for nearly the same price as the 1.3GHz. That's what I did, and obviously it's worth it for nearly no additional cost. If money is tight and there aren't any more good HP coupon offers, then I'd say the upgrade to ATI graphics is more important for performance that going from 1.3 to 1.6GHz. Avoid the recently added Intel 1.3GHz CULV SU4100 CPU option-- that's a dog compared to the SU7300 on the quick ship model.

Thanks for the quick response! I'm sold on the 1.6 Ghz/ATI graphics, the bump in benchmark performance seems well worth it. Plus I realized the quick ship model doesn't even come with the ATi graphics, so definitely not getting that one. Thanks for the great review!

It would be a too perfect world if battery life were the same with dedicated graphics and the faster CPU . It's the dedicated graphics that use power more than the somewhat faster CPU. The machine automatically switches to Intel integrated graphics when unplugged, though you can override this. Mostly I use the ATI with the machine plugged in (gaming). But when I had used the ATI unplugged for Photoshop work, max runtimes were about an hour shorter (so 4 hours rather than 5). If you use it for even more demanding tasks, esp. 3D, it would probably take a greater toll.